There was a chap in the pub the other day bemoaning the fact that Pride Park just does not have the same atmosphere as the Baseball Ground. I had to disagree. Given a full house and a vital match, then the Rams’ new ground can be every bit as pulsating as the club’s old home.

True, the venues are utterly different. Pride Park doesn’t have spectators breathing down opposing players’ necks like they did on foggy afternoons at a Baseball Ground that reeked of cigarette smoke, Brylcreem and whatever it was that was produced from those belching chimneys at Ley’s foundry. Professional football was spawned and grew up in industrial Britain, and the Baseball Ground, wedged between a factory and tight streets of terraced houses, was about as typical as it got.

Nearly 80 years after the Rams moved there, they were still giving opponents a fright. Chelsea could have probably dealt with the intimidating atmosphere, although they still lost that pulsating Football League Cup tie there in 1968, but it helped put pay to Benfica four years later. Goodness knows what those players must have thought as they stepped off their coach on that misty autumn evening in 1972. They would have been puzzled at the fact that the pitch was so heavy when it clearly hadn’t been raining. Brian Clough and the local fire-brigade … that’s a story for another time…

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But there were plenty of times when the Baseball Ground was a depressing place to play football. Take the home Second Division game against Chelsea in September 1982. Barely 8,000 fans turned up. I know … only 8,000 to see the Rams play Chelsea. They were totally different times, though.

I’ll give you another example, from a game I recall quite well, although it is a long, long time ago now.

There were less than 8,000 Derby County fans at the Baseball Ground on the last Saturday before Christmas 1956, those long-suffering types who are always there, braving rain, fog and freezing temperatures, the sort who deserve some reward for their loyalty in all conditions, no matter how low their team may have sunk.

And how they were rewarded on that dreary day, 61 years ago, as the Rams swept aside Bradford Park Avenue in a style which suggested that, by the time winter turned to spring, Derby would be well on the way to the Third Division North title.

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Despite missing out to Grimsby Town the previous season – only one club was promoted in those days – Derby County were clearly too good for the Third Division, despite being relegated after one of the worst seasons in their history. New manager Harry Storer had shifted the dead wood, made some intuitive signings, and in their first season in the Northern Section, the Rams had scored 110 goals. Now they were on target to go one better, as Bradford were about to find out.

Derby opened the 1956-57 season with a 5-3 home win over Gateshead. On the last Saturday of September, they beat Halifax Town 6-0 at the Baseball Ground. Strangely, though, by then the Rams were in a minor trough. They had lost their previous two matches, at Workington and Rochdale, and lost the two following the defeat of Halifax: at Hartlepools and at home to Bradford City, who became the first side to win at the Baseball Ground since Grimsby’s victory there seven months earlier.

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But after losing to Bradford City on October 13, Derby lost only four more League games that season. Park Avenue, City’s counterparts from across the West Yorkshire city, were just one of the clubs who felt the full force of the Rams’ attacking power. It was always on the cards: Park Avenue had let in 122 goals in seeking re-election the previous season.

Derby took the lead in the 12th minute through outside-left Allan Crowshaw, signed from West Brom the previous month. Two minutes later, 19-year-old debutant Peter Wyer, who had been transferred from Coventry City in the close season, made it 2-0. Dennis Woodhead, making a rare appearance on the right wing, added a third after 19 minutes, and Crowshaw scored again only 60 seconds later. Four goals in 12 minutes made those brave Rams fans forget the chill conditions.

Bradford's skipper, Cyril Robinson, an FA Cup winner with Blackpool in 1953, knocked one off the arrears two minutes from half-time, his lobbed free-kick over a line-up of Rams defenders catching goalkeeper Terry Webster napping.

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But two goals late in the second half, both from Scottish centre-forward Jock Buchanan completed the rout. Twelve months later, Buchanan was to join Park Avenue as they continued their battle for survival.

South African-born goalkeeper Norman Malan was at fault over the Rams’ first and fifth goals, each time failing to field crosses by Woodhead. Indeed, the visitors were one of the poorest teams seen at Derby for several years.

For Derby Telegraph readers, Wilf Shaw summed up: “This was the formula that produced Derby County's 6-1 victory over Bradford: the midfield foraging and text-book feeding of Ryan, the raiding of wingers Woodhead and Crowshaw, and the raiding, plus ball-playing ability, plus knack of holding the line together of Buchanan, a late and happy choice for centre-forward when Straw reported that he was unfit because of shoulder trouble.

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“… Bradford were weak opposition. Deplorably so. It looked as though they were on to the biggest thrashing of the season during that opening spell. Two things prevented it: there was a tendency by the Rams to take a breather for a quarter of an hour before half-time; the already difficult conditions became shocking after the interval.”

Shaw obviously gave full marks to all the Rams’ forwards, but added: “Reg Ryan’s first half alone was worth the entrance money.”

Indeed, it was the Irish international midfielder’s influence that did as much as anything to ensure that the Rams’ promotion challenger never wavered thereafter. At the season’s end, Derby stood on top of the table, four points ahead of Hartlepools United and five in front of Accrington Stanley. Former Ilkeston miner Ray Straw, had equalled the Rams’ individual scoring record for a season. How he must have wished that injury hadn’t ruled him out of the goal feast against hapless Park Avenue.